


Natural Philosophy

by canis_m



Category: Juuni Kokki | Twelve Kingdoms
Genre: Future Fic, M/M, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-02-25
Updated: 2007-02-25
Packaged: 2017-11-11 00:20:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,805
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/472355
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/canis_m/pseuds/canis_m
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Not all of the kingdom of Tai is icebound in winter.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Natural Philosophy

**Author's Note:**

> For Amei.

Not all of the kingdom of Tai is icebound in winter. In the southernmost reaches of Sui Province a collusion of wind and sea bathes narrow strips of coastline, raising cloud forests from the perpetual mist. Three _li_ upland and inland from shore the swaths of mountain woodland are snowy, but the shore itself huddles greenly under fog. When snow does fall it is swallowed at once by unfrozen earth or sea.

In summer the fog ebbs and rises like the tide. Beginning in late spring birds arrive from their wintering in Shun, on the far side of the Empty Sea: some of their number can be found nowhere else in Tai. On rocks in the inlets swarm rare golden cormorants at their rookeries. They are peerless divers. Elsewhere in Sui the village fishermen and women train them, as if the cormorants were hunting dogs, to retrieve their slippery catch, but there are no villagers here. The land is inclement to humankind, despite the climate. The fjords with their teeming kelp beds are pasture for sea serpents, not dragons but snakelike _youjuu_ whose coils churn the water into vortexes when they feed. 

In all seasons the coastline jags and buckles, throws itself erratically against the surf. Cypress and pine sprout sideways from stone cliffs that anchor them. The oldest of the trees are half-animal, half-awake. They speak to one another, either directly through the shivering of their needles or by proxy. The antecedents of domestic bluebirds carry messages between them, recite evergreen sagas or arboreal romances, intimations of long-lost leaves. 

One might be afraid to intrude here, were one human. 

On his arrival Taiki sheds his clothing and the figure that it clothed. The birds are untroubled by a kirin. He walks dappled and cloven-hooved among them, among the murmuring trees. 

*

The hut in which he spends his nights is of indeterminate age. It has a stone threshold, a stone floor. The single room contains a chair, a table, a low and narrow bed. Its last inhabitant was a half-beast poet who believed he could interpret the trees. On the strength of that conviction he wrote a series of _Verses from the Boughs,_ which circulated in the capital to moderate acclaim. Taiki has read them, although he harbors doubts about their faithfulness to the voices of the wood.

To the hut he brought with him a store of plums, the first of the year. To the plums he adds the new growth of wild herbs plucked raw from the slopes outside. He had meant to subsist on these alone, for simplicity's sake, but every other morning a winged tenku arrives unbidden, as if by prearrangement, its doglike body strapped with packs that hold rice balls and prepared cold greens, filled pastries and flasks of tea. It is too much food. He eats gamely. The tenku is a friendly courier, wagging its furry tail at him whenever it alights.

He draws and writes during the midday hours, when the light is at its best. His penmanship is never as good as he would like it to be. He practices calligraphy by copying passages from the only book he has brought with him, other than his own notes: a bound edition of the _makurazoushi_ written by a Saiho of Tai some thousand years gone. Her given name was Setsuren. She wrote with great prescience of her master and the court, if little of herself. The kirin of every age are self-effacing. In Setsuren's time and before it they wore scarves to veil their manes, even in the palace, as if the gold were too precious to be uncovered in view of anyone but the enthroned.

Would the fashion have insisted he cover his hair, dark as it is? he wonders. Even without the added bother of veils, it has grown too long to be practical. While working he sometimes binds it at the small of his back to restrain it, as he has seen Risai do. He thinks of trimming it and never does. 

He sleeps sparingly alone. During the early years, just after his return, he was slow to recover from the seven spent in perjury. He took the renewal of his vows in the most literal sense, less out of conscious determination than animal need. Then years passed, and more years, until the sum of time lived at his master's side began to dwarf its opposite. The stridence of his memories eased. He grew able to face temporary partings with no less grace and not much keener grief than others of his kind. Still, he finds he is sooner reconciled to his own departures than to Gyousou's. If nothing else, he trusts himself to make his way home.

Ten days into his stay, a letter arrives from the palace. He goes into the hut to answer it with pen and ink.

 _Should I come?_ he writes, in a hand rendered small but liquid. _Only tell me, and I will._

Since long ago they have made a habit of paper letters, despite the feathered messengers that speak in human tongues. It gives Taiki pleasure to have a physical proof, a remembrance he can hold in his hands. He keeps what Gyousou sends him. He knows Gyousou does likewise. Someday, he thinks--some far-off day whose coming he both assumes and cannot quite conceive of, when the two of them are dust and another king reigns in Tai--the letters will be assembled, and that will be his pillow book. It will lack the breadth and elegance of Setsuren's, if not the heart. Meanwhile he has another book to write.

*

It is a mystery, why the birds of this world lay eggs. They sing, court, pair, and nest, and the eggs laid are devoured by predators, including men, almost to a one. Those few that go uneaten never hatch. After long thought Taiki comes to believe the eggs exist for the same reason plants here bear fruit: to feed the hungry. Out of the exuberance, the generosity of life. For the sake of giving. Not so different from the reason why the people of this world love.

When he returns from observation of the nesting sites at dusk, a visitor is waiting. From between the trees he sees first the tethered suugu, an interruption in the mist. Surprise shortens his breath. He canters the rest of the way into the clearing, toward the hut.

The man on the doorstep is smiling. A cask of wine sits beside him, sealed like a gift to a host from a guest. 

Taiki has forgotten what shape he wears until the words of greeting catch in his throat. Unlike his fellows, he has never learned to talk outside of human form. He feels for a moment like the speechless and gangly-legged foal he never was. Instead of changing at once, he prances forward, skipping on the mossy turf. The man on the doorstep rises, laughing, to pull the cloak from his shoulders and offer it in a gesture familiar to them both.

A few steps shy of it, Taiki transforms. There is the usual annunciatory glitter, the whirl of displaced wind. When the air settles his mane sways loose about his hips. 

"You came all this way," he murmurs. Not with dismay.

"I didn't care to wait," says the king. 

The hut is hardly fit for visitation. Taiki's clothes lie on the bed where he left them last. He gathers them and dresses with the sense that his efforts may soon be undone. 

"I would've come," he says. "I should have. It's faster for me."

"You are too quick to accommodate," says Gyousou, as much to say _too agreeable_ or _too good_. "You must let me give chase from time to time. I need the exercise." His voice is mild with wryness; even so it fills the room to the exclusion of all other sound. "How goes the survey."

"I'm almost finished. Is everything all right at home?"

"As you would expect. Suspicions, accusations. What business keeps the Taiho so long away. Have I locked you up in a bower in the North Palace at last."

Taiki ducks his head in spite of himself. He turns to look more closely at Gyousou. "No one really said that."

"No. They only wondered." Gyousou sets the sealed cask upon the tabletop. "Will you share this with me?"

Taiki brings out cups in which to pour the wine.

*

Fog sifts the dawn to a pure and dreamlike grey. By this light Gyousou rises, moves to the table to look down on notes and sketches, on the feathers and stippled eggshells lying scattered among the sheaves. He leafs through them as if through a collection of verses, unhurried. For a time after waking Taiki lies with hands curled, watching Gyousou through the intermittent gauze of his mane. The bedcovers that warm him have increased by one during the night. He recognizes by weight and scent his master's summer cloak.

Outside the house, his subjects dart through air and address the morning, the trees, one another. At length Gyousou leaves the table and returns to the bedside.

"There were huts like this one," he murmurs, "in the seters above Garyou, where the herds were taken to graze in summer. I used to sleep in empty ones, in autumn, when I was a boy."

Diffuse light softens his face, the strong lines of his brow. There is no room for two in the narrow bed. Taiki draws one hand from the covers and reaches. His master leans. 

The kiss is thorough and ends too soon. Gyousou's forehead touches his. 

"Finish your work."

"I will."

"Go back to sleep."

Taiki smiles at the contradictory instructions. He means to get up, to see his master off and make the most of the day, but disobedience is foreign to his nature. The aftermath of too much wine becalms him. A hundred years, he thinks. A hundred years of practice, and still he can't keep pace. He supposes there is no harm in it. By now his master is as good at being patient as at giving chase.

When he wakes again the fog has receded; sunlight streams through the rumoring pines. Both Gyousou and the suugu are gone. The cloak remains. Taiki lingers in the open doorway with it wrapped around him, though the early morning chill has passed. He lowers his face to one shoulder to dwell a little longer on the scent. 

The gentians on the seaward slope have bloomed during the night, some pale, some blue. It is a mystery why flowers bloom in this world, too, for that matter. There can be no reason for it other than joy. Taiki feels when he walks past them as if the blossoms have sprung up in his tracks.


End file.
